1958 WHEN I WAS TOWARD THE LAW III

THE GREEN HOUSE - RAILWAY HOUSE WYNYARD

So here I was, working in the GREEN HOUSE, Head Office of the New South Wales Government Railways ( NSWGR), in the Office of the Solicitor for Railways. As I showed in an earlier post, it was not a huge office ,but top heavy with Legal Professionals a smattering of clerical staff and me at the bottom of the pile!

On reflection, the Solicitors were a really varied lot, the Solicitor for Railways was a brooding, rather unpleasant person, his Deputy was a mild seeming rather pleasant chap, there were others varying from Victorian era avuncular to modern day sex- obsessed sleaze, to financially distressed totally pre-occupied wreck, to modern calm self- possessed and efficient, to modern slightly amused by it all,to  prim "this is all a bit beneath me" and to  "after what I saw in the war, nothing impresses me"and one or two others, I forget or would rather forget.

My immediate boss was The Chief Clerk. He was a really nice old gent, whose whole demeanor would have been suitable to someone in the 1900s. He was a good, honest person of very conservative attitudes although he was a Labor Party man through and through. He was talking about an acquaintance one day, and described his shock and disapproval at seeing the fellow "driving a NEW car...and him a good Labor man too!" I managed to keep a respectful straight face. 

On arriving at the Office each day , he would remove his suit coat and don a lightweight alpaca working jacket for comfort. But the time would come, several times a day, when the direct line phone from the Solicitor for Railways himself would ring. He was immediately galvanized into action, dropping what he was doing, seizing the handset and responding "Yes Sirrrr". Then the phone would be replaced and his swivel chair would creak and groan as he stood up with a sigh, removed the alpaca and donned his suit coat -to enter ...the Presence. On most occasions he was back out in no time flat, charged with some trivial task. That would be entrusted to an underling and then he would do the coat for jacket swap, and settle back to work. His name was Harry Bateman and I remember him with affection. He told me that his staff records were among those privileged to be marked " LOYAL DURING THE GREAT STRIKE 1917" - a matter of great moment as it was for my Grandfather Beckmann, who being German by birth and , in view of WW I, already under attack on that account, had no alternative to be anything but " LOYAL" and to be seen to be!

Another principal figure in the office was Miss Burden the Secretary to the Solicitor for Railways and Head Typist. A lady of considerable standing in her view - if not that of her charges!

The Supreme Court Sydney

My role was to go about the Courts,High (rarely), Supreme,District, and Workers'Compensation Commission and the various Solicitors' Offices and Barristers' Chambers, filing documents and delivering Briefs and correspondence. It was a close community of several hundred people and I very quickly found that I could hardly go anywhere in the City without seeing several people I knew. My daily round was full of characters. Those were still the days when there remained in the legal fraternity some people who seemed to be straight out of Dickens, whether in dress ,affected manner or actual personality. "Characters" abounded, and firms which were very old, were numerous. Just to mention those which I came to know did work for the Archdiocese of Sydney : there were Makinson,D'Apice, and Murphy and Moloney ( where my future Wife worked as a long term and valued employee) and J.J. Carroll and Cecil O'Dea (where poor old Mr Carroll still came in, bent over at near 90 degrees, his head painfully turned up to speak) and numerous others.Legal history was around not only in that personal sense , but also in the premises. Most were rather dingy, more early 1900s in style, and in buildings often dating from the late 1800s. The city was still free of most of what we see to-day. The tallest structure in town was the AWA Tower above the building in York Street which housed the then Protestant Radio Station 2CH.

The AWA TOWER York Street Sydney

Don't worry .......we had our Catholic Radio Station -  2SM which became in the 1960s Sydney's leading Commercial Radio Station - not because of its Catholicity - which was far from being dominant, but because of its Hit Tunes programming and characters like Tony Withers and Mike Walsh etc., etc. But I digress.

So I had to get around the City as quickly as possible, doing a morning run filing Court documents and an afternoon run picking up documents, and the various daily emergency deliveries as required. To do this efficiently I had to learn all the alleys and backways and buildings which connected with one another (sometimes surprisingly) providing short-cuts. It was all a very "in" sort of thing, though I rather felt like a rat, scurrying here and there, but I enjoyed doing it well. I got to know a number of the Solicitors who had small but lucrative Workers'Comp. practices because of Trade Union associations. And I got to be recognized by the Barristers' clerks whose principals we regularly used - a strange lot, the Clerks too -well portrayed in the Rumpole T.V. series - as was the whole English and Australian legal scene of the time. Unlike many of the workers in the game, I had the advantage of understanding the Latin used in the titles of the various documents: the Subpoenas - Orders to do something "Under Penalty", "Duces Tecum"-(" you shall bring with you") ordering the production of documents in Court, "Ad Testificandum" ordering presence in order to testify. There were many other phrases too, but the Queen of them all was, and is (leaving English floundering in its wake) "Mutatis Mutandis" (" Having been changed as much as it needs to be changed")! Take that you jabberers in English!

Getting to know people was important in getting things done, as was helping people out when they or their matter needed help - it might be you in need of their help another day. But the people it was important to get to know most of all, were the registry officials in each of the Courts. They could, if they wished, cover up your mistakes or those of your Solicitors. Or on a bad day, they could hang you out to dry and leave you mercilessly swinging in the wind. They were critically important when there were filing deadlines to be met or when you wanted a specific hearing date and things of that nature. And their decisions were often quite arbitrary. If they had a bad night out the previous night, you were done. And although your office could sometimes formally appeal to a Registrar or Master of the Rolls, it wasn't the done thing and they knew it ! 

Sometimes I had to feel sorry for the clients of some solicitors. On one occasion a young clerk I knew came to us to re-activate a Workers Comp. case in which his office had physically lost the file for 7 years! Perhaps the client was too badly injured to get to complain!

One of the biggest groups of actions we had against us were the Mangoplah Fires cases, which originated in a simple trip by a steam-hauled goods train one hot Summer's day. (Yes until "Global Warming" Ha Ha! We used to have hot Summers' days) Dozens of claims came against us. 

But it wasn't, always busy. When the Courts were closed we had time to catch up on things that accumulated during the year. On one fateful day, I was asked to clean up and organize the rear Store Room. I hopped into the task with a will and had it looking quite spiffy in half a morning - all very rational, tidy and all that. There was some rubbish to be disposed of including a lump of wood- of all things. Out it all went, and everything was fine. That is, until two or perhaps three weeks later, when Mr Crawford, a Solicitor who looked as if he has just been demobbed from some dull section of the R.A.F., came after me ferret-like asking in an accusing tone, "Did you clean up the Store Room?" "Did you see a portion of timber?" ("Lump of wood" thought I) "Yes" was the answer of course. "What happened to it?" "I threw it out with the other rubbish", was the reply. He had long since guessed the answer and had plenty of time to work up his spluttering rage! But, all things pass, and in due course, I learned that it had been a vital piece of evidence in a case between NSWGR and a New Zealand supplier of Sleepers! 

He never did apologise for not having the piece appropriately marked and, I never heard of the matter again.

One of my daily contacts was a slightly older, perhaps 21/22 yrs old bloke, who was newly married- D.S. He was a good bloke - a Baptist of some description, but not particularly prudish. We had good yarns as we headed out for the morning runs - he was more concerned with conveyancing matters and the Registrar General's Office, which was of course close to the District Court.

At a late stage, the Office employed a young fellow -  even junior to me, who used to walk out with us - his name was Richard........ Who had gone to School at Barker College (Bah Kuh) and he was filling in time until Uni started. He was "frightfully pukka" in speech and everything that needed to be explained to him was greeted with "Oh! I catch!"(Evidently a bit of Barker jargon.) One got the impression he had not had much exposure to the Plebs- as he seemed to consider us!. A few years later his time at University was interspersed with tussles with the Law over censorship Laws! He became a media sensation, briefly.

But all this daily rat running around the City was not getting me formal training in the Law. Despite representations from a number of the Solicitors in the Office, including his Deputy, the Solicitor for Railways in his bunker-like large office overlooking Wynyard Park would not accept the idea of having an Articled Clerk so that was the end of my hopes of Articles! Since he was the Solicitor of Record in the office no-one else could grant me Articles.

 However, he was prepared to allow me time to attend lectures during the day, as long as I made up the time before normal working hours. The result was that I started work each morning at 7.30 a. m. and had just a half an hour for lunch. Basically, he was just an old softie!! The real result was that after my exhausting rat running around town, I would find myself nodding off during lectures when the University Law School Year began in 1959. I enjoyed most of the lectures including Jurisprudence and Roman Law in particular. But when the end of the Year came, it was a case of failure. That was that! It was humiliating.

To contemplate being a clerk in yet another organization based strictly on advancement by seniority - having just fled that in the Commonwealth Public Service - was ridiculous. I began to cast about for an alternative.

1957 A NEW BEGINNING "THEIR OWN PRE-OCCUPATIONS"

HOME AGAIN

"Their own pre-occupations” indeed.

I did not have long to dwell on these subjects before I arrived home to some shocking news.

My Dad had lost his eye to Glaucoma which is a buildup of fluid behind the eye. Nothing had been said to me, no inkling of this was given by letter. Lest it should cause me to return home! Or lest it should disturb my mind! What amazingly selfless action on the part of my Mum and Dad, who in the first instance had not wanted me to go. They had endured this traumatic event with their own quiet stoicism. The event had been entirely sudden and without warning. Dad had been riding his bike the several miles up to his work at Potts Hill Pumping Station along the road toward Bankstown, one evening for the Night Shift. He had worked at Potts Hill for many years since the War. It was then steam powered by coal-fired boilers and he was an Engine Room Attendant - hot, dirty work. A sudden stab of intense pain in the eye caused him to fall from his bike. He thought a passing car had thrown up a stone and struck him. By sheer grit he got himself to the Station where help was called and at the Hospital the Doctor gave him the grim news. The operation was prompt - his left eye was gone- replaced by a temporary glass eye, until a tailor made "eye" could be prepared.

This permanent eye had not been produced, when I arrived home, the whole trauma was not much more than a week or so old.

MY DEAR MUM & DAD A VERY INFORMAL PHOTO EARLY IN THE MORNING
ONCE ONE KNOWS THE DIFFERENCE AROUND DAD'S ARTIFICIAL EYE (HIS LEFT) CAN BE DISCERNED

I have endless admiration for the courage with which Dad dealt with this distressing development. I never once heard him complain or ask for consideration in any way, yet the disorientation, inconvenience and no doubt pain and discomfort must have been immense. Jack Dixon was made of steely stuff!

Not many days after arriving home, I was to receive another shock. I said to Mum and Dad that I had better go around the block into Third Avenue and visit Grandma's house (as we still called the former home of Dad's Mother who had died in 1948. I wanted to see my maiden Aunt Nell (Ellen) and Dad's Brother Bill particularly. Under the terms of Grandma's Will, the house was to be a home for the two unmarried people as well as Grandma's Brother Tom "Wingy" (for his withered arm-result of a childhood accident) and Abby (Albert) who, for all his constant presence in the family in my childhood days, I do not understand his relationship. Dad's Mother only had two children, my Dad and his younger brother Bill. Her husband, my Grandfather was a sometimes violent alcoholic and had not lived in the family home for years. Grandma had taken in a number of "strays" including her brother Tom, Abby, my maiden Aunt Nell (daughter of Grandma's other Brother Jack whose wife had died giving birth to Nell - during or after the First World War he re-married to an English woman who would have nothing to do with the daughter of his first wife) Grandma also took in two sisters Thelma (Joan) and Anne who were relatives in some way, but from the country- around Goulburn I think.

But I digress (in grand style!) So I walked around to the old house at 34 Third Avenue. It was a rambling old 1890's house built in several stages. I was chatting to Nell in the kitchen when in walked Abby. I was appalled and horrified to see that there was in his neck a large hole. When he breathed or attempted to speak, the most ghastly noises resulted. I felt physically sick, my mind was reeling. The poor fellow had, of course, had one of those distressing cancer of the throat operations which normally result in the person adopting the wearing of a special cravat. He was not the most sensitive of souls and had not yet been convinced of that necessity, though he was to do so not long after.

1911 MY GRANDMA DIXON WITH MY DAD ON THE LEFT  AND POOR ABBY ON THE RIGHT
DAD'S ONLY SIBLING, HIS YOUNGER BROTHER BILL IS ON GRANDMA'S KNEE
WHO ABBY WAS I DO NOT KNOW

There was no way I could "stay calm and carry on”, I could not get out of the place quickly enough and tried to make some pathetic excuse as I left. Not one of my more glorious moments.

When I got home, Mum and Dad were mortified that in all our pre-occupation with our own problems, they had forgotten to forewarn me.

Plainly, others had greater and more traumatic problems than I had.

As the days passed, the question of what I should now do came sharply into focus. Having planned and hoped for so many years to work directly for the Saviour of the World, all other things seemed like so much dross- all equally mundane and unimportant. But that was my choice. I wanted time to sort things out. But Mum and Dad were concerned that this would result in mere brooding and advocated that I should promptly seek work. The euphemistically titled "gap year" had yet to be invented. We could not have afforded it in any case!

At the end of Junior High School (Third Year in 1954) along with all my Classmates, I had undergone the State Government’s Vocational Guidance testing. This was obviously a fruit of the new "scientific age" and the limitless ambitions of modern Psychology, which, naively accepted, did so much to destroy many Religious Orders in the post Conciliar turmoil.

So I did all the marvellous scientific Rohrsach tests etc. staring into images of coloured circles to see what numbers I could discern, all the multiple choice questions and so on. I don't think we got to examining the entrails of animals- perhaps there wasn't time. Then I answered all the "cleverly designed" questions about what I would do if, and what I would choose if, to covertly discern my inclinations etc., etc. And, having laboured mightily, with careful analysis, the highly qualified Psychologist delivered himself of my Report and the judgment that I was suited, to "Arts, Law and Economics......really anything that you choose."

The wonders of Science!

My family had always voted Labor and so I had been brought up with an admiration for the Federal Government and particularly, Prime Ministers Curtain and then Ben Chifley. And occasional exposure to Frank Capra movies only reinforced those attitudes. On my own account, I had developed an admiration for the then Prime Minister the Liberal (in our own perverse way, by "Liberal" Australians mean "Conservative") Sir Robert Menzies.All of this, led to me in my immaturity, thinking that it would be good to work for the Federal Government. So I applied, sat for the examination, and was accepted and then appointed to the Bureau of Statistics!!! NOTHING COULD HAVE BEEN LESS APPEALING. Sure, it was adequately paid, secure and all that, but it was soul-destroying and brain-deadening and the published seniority lists rubbed in my face the vast numbers of people who would have to resign, retire or die before I could move up through the thousands of them.

The Bureau of Statistics was located near or perhaps in the same building as the large DYMOCKS bookshop, still in the same premises in George Street, Sydney, between King and Market Streets. My co-workers consisted of two Greek chaps in their forties, one quiet and pleasant, the other goggle-eyed, sex-obsessed and bitterly anti-Catholic. There was also a fat young Anglo fellow who considered himself a free thinker, but that did not seem to have been to any great purpose. The boss was a moustachioed ex-Army War veteran whom the others ( behind his back )regarded as a fool, and his contempt for them was pretty clear. I was on a train to nowhere.

I had gradually decided that I wanted to be a Lawyer and preferably a Barrister. This seemed to be a way to do good, to argue for what was right and to defend the innocent and all that. But my family could not afford to send me to University.

At the same time, my Dad recalled a friendship with a gentleman he greatly revered. A real gentleman that is, not abusing the term in any way. Mr Howsley Farnsworth, to whom I was introduced by Dad, was a very Senior Executive in the New South Wales Department of Railways administration.(The Railways have, in the intervening years undergone numerous ludicrous name changes and organizational changes, to give the appearance of real progress.)

RAILWAY HOUSE YORK STREET ABOVE WYNYARD STATION WHICH ALSO EXTENDS UNDER THE PARK IN THE FOREGROUND - IT WAS KNOWN AS "THE GREEN HOUSE" FOR OBVIOUS REASONS

The result of this happy introduction was that I was appointed to a clerical position in the Solicitor for Railways office in the Green House above the underground Wynyard Station in the heart of the City.

The Solicitor for Railways was one Sydney Burke, not an endearing character, and there were about 16 solicitors in the Office supported by about 12 Legal Secretaries and  5 clerks of whom I was the least. I had found a "home", or so it seemed. 

*WHEN I WAS TOWARD THE LAW PART III ME 1958

THE GREEN HOUSE - RAILWAY HOUSE WYNYARD

So here I was, working in the GREEN HOUSE, Head Office of the New South Wales Government Railways ( NSWGR), in the Office of the Solicitor for Railways. As I showed in an earlier post, it was not a huge office ,but top heavy with Legal Professionals a smattering of clerical staff and me at the bottom of the pile!

On reflection, the Solicitors were a really varied lot, the Solicitor for Railways was a brooding, rather unpleasant person, his Deputy was a mild seeming rather pleasant chap, there were others varying from Victorian era avuncular to modern day sex- obsessed sleaze, to financially distressed totally pre-occupied wreck, to modern calm self- possessed and efficient, to modern slightly amused by it all,to  prim "this is all a bit beneath me" and to  "after what I saw in the war, nothing impresses me"and one or two others, I forget or would rather forget.

My immediate boss was The Chief Clerk. He was a really nice old gent, whose whole demeanor would have been suitable to someone in the 1900s. He was a good, honest person of very conservative attitudes although he was a Labor Party man through and through. He was talking about an acquaintance one day, and described his shock and disapproval at seeing the fellow "driving a NEW car...and him a good Labor man too!" I managed to keep a respectful straight face.

On arriving at the Office each day , he would remove his suit coat and don a lightweight alpaca working jacket for comfort. But the time would come, several times a day, when the direct line phone from the Solicitor for Railways himself would ring. He was immediately galvanized into action, dropping what he was doing, seizing the handset and responding "Yes Sirrrr". Then the phone would be replaced and his swivel chair would creak and groan as he stood up with a sigh, removed the alpaca and donned his suit coat -to enter ...the Presence. On most occasions he was back out in no time flat, charged with some trivial task. That would be entrusted to an underling and then he would do the coat for jacket swap, and settle back to work. His name was Harry Bateman and I remember him with affection. He told me that his staff records were among those privileged to be marked " LOYAL DURING THE GREAT STRIKE 1917" - a matter of great moment as it was for my Grandfather Beckmann, who being German by birth and , in view of WW I, already under attack on that account, had no alternative to be anything but " LOYAL" and to be seen to be!

Another principal figure in the office was Miss Burden the Secretary to the Solicitor for Railways and Head Typist. A lady of considerable standing in her view - if not that of her charges!

The Supreme Court Sydney

My role was to go about the Courts,High (rarely), Supreme,District, and Workers'Compensation Commission and the various Solicitors' Offices and Barristers' Chambers, filing documents and delivering Briefs and correspondence. It was a close community of several hundred people and I very quickly found that I could hardly go anywhere in the City without seeing several people I knew. My daily round was full of characters. Those were still the days when there remained in the legal fraternity some people who seemed to be straight out of Dickens, whether in dress ,affected manner or actual personality. "Characters" abounded, and firms which were very old, were numerous. Just to mention those which I came to know did work for the Archdiocese of Sydney : there were Makinson,D'Apice, and Murphy and Moloney ( where my future Wife worked as a long term and valued employee) and J.J. Carroll and Cecil O'Dea (where poor old Mr Carroll still came in, bent over at near 90 degrees, his head painfully turned up to speak) and numerous others.Legal history was around not only in that personal sense , but also in the premises. Most were rather dingy, more early 1900s in style, and in buildings often dating from the late 1800s. The city was still free of most of what we see to-day. The tallest structure in town was the AWA Tower above the building in York Street which housed the then Protestant Radio Station 2CH.

The AWA TOWER York Street Sydney

Don't worry we had our Catholic Radio Station 2SM which became in the 1960s Sydney's leading Commercial Radio Station - not because of its Catholicity - which was far from being dominant but because of its Hit Tunes programming and characters like Tony Withers  and Mike Walsh etc., etc. But I digress.

So I had to get around the City as quickly as possible doing a morning run filing Court documents and an afternoon run picking up documents and the various daily emergency deliveries as required. To do this efficiently I had to learn all the alleys and back ways and buildings which connected with one another (sometimes surprisingly) providing short-cuts.It was all a very "in" sort of thing , though I rather felt like a rat, scurrying here and there, but I enjoyed doing it well. I got to know a number of the Solicitors who had small but lucrative Workers'Comp. practices because of Trade Union associations. And I got to be recognized by the Barristers' clerks whose principals we regularly used - a strange lot, the Clerks too -well portrayed in the Rumpole T.V. series - as was the whole English and Australian legal scene of the time. Unlike many of the workers in the game, I had the advantage of understanding the Latin used in the titles of the various documents   : the Subpoenas - Orders to do something "Under Penalty" "Duces Tecum"-(" you shall bring with you") ordering the production of documents in Court, " Ad Testificandum" ordering presence in order to testify. There were many other phrases too but the Queen of them all was, and is (leaving English floundering in its wake) "Mutatis Mutandis" (" Having been changed as much as it needs to be changed")! Take that you jabberers in English!

Getting to know people was important in getting things done, as was helping people out when they or their matter needed help - it might be you in need of their help another day. But the people it was important to get to know most of all, were the registry officials in each of the Courts. They could, if they wished, cover up your mistakes or those of your Solicitors. Or on a bad day, they could hang you out to dry and leave you mercilessly swinging in the wind . They were critically important when there were filing deadlines to be met or when you wanted a specific hearing date and things of that nature. And their decisions were often quite arbitrary. If they had a bad night out the previous night , you were done. And although your office could sometimes formally appeal to a Registrar or Master of the Rolls, it wasn't the done thing and they knew it !

Sometimes I had to feel sorry for the clients of some solicitors. On one occasion a young clerk I knew came to us to re-activate a Workers Comp. case in which his office had physically lost the file for 7 years! Perhaps the client was too badly injured to get to complain!

One of the biggest groups of actions we had against us were the Mangoplah Fires cases, which originated in a simple trip by a steam -hauled goods train one hot Summer's day.(Yes until "Global Warming" Ha Ha! We used to have hot Summers' days) Dozens of claims came against us.

But it wasn't, always busy. When the Courts were closed we had time to catch up on things that accumulated during the year.On one fateful day, I was asked to clean up and organize the rear Store Room. I hopped into the task with a will, and had it looking quite spiffy in half a morning - all very rational, tidy and all that. There was some rubbish to be disposed of including a lump of wood- of all things. Out it all went, and everything was fine. That is until two or perhaps three weeks later, when Mr.Crawford a Solicitor who looked as if he has just been demobbed from some dull section of the R.A.F., came after me ferret- like asking in an accusing tone, "Did you clean up the Store Room?" "Did you see a portion of timber?" ("Lump of wood thought I") Yes was the answer of course. "What happened to it?" I threw it out with the other rubbish, was the reply. He had long since guessed the answer and had plenty of time to work up his spluttering rage! But, all things pass, and in due course I learned that it had been a vital piece of evidence in a case between NSWGR and a New Zealand supplier of Sleepers! He never did apologise for not having the piece appropriately marked and, I never heard of the matter again.

One of my daily contacts was a slightly older, perhaps 21/22 yrs old bloke who was newly married- D.S. He was a good bloke - a Baptist of some description, but not particularly prudish. We had good yarns as we headed out for the morning runs - he was more concerned with conveyancing matters and the Registrar General's Office, which was of course close to the District Court.

At a late stage the Office employed a young fellow even junior to me who used to walk out with us - his name was Richard........ Who had gone to School at Barker College (Bah Kuh) and he was filling in time until Uni started. He was "frightfully pukka" in speech and everything that needed to be explained to him was greeted with "Oh! I catch!"(Evidently a bit of Barker jargon.) One got the impression he had not had much exposure to the Plebs- as he seemed to consider us!. A few years later his time at University was interspersed with tussles with the Law over censorship Laws! He became a media sensation, briefly.

But all this daily rat running around the City was not getting me formal training in the Law. Despite representations from a number of the Solicitors in the Office, including his Deputy, the Solicitor for Railways in his bunker- like large office overlooking Wynyard Park would not accept the idea of having an Articled Clerk so that was the end of my hopes of Articles! Since he was the Solicitor of Record in the office no-one else could grant me Articles.

 However, he was prepared to allow me time to attend lectures during the day, as long as I made up the time before normal working hours. The result was that I started work each morning at 7.30 a. m. and had just a half an hour for lunch. Basically, he was just an old softie!! The real result was that after my exhausting rat running around town, I would find myself nodding off during lectures when the University Law School Year began in 1959. I enjoyed most of the lectures including Jurisprudence and Roman Law in particular. But when the end of the Year came, it was a case of failure. That was that!It was humiliating.

To contemplate being a clerk in yet another organization based strictly on advancement by seniority - having just fled that in the Commonwealth Public Service - was ridiculous. I began to cast about for an alternative.